Where's the Farmer? Limiting Liability in Midwestern Industrial Hog Production
Where's the Farmer? Limiting Liability in Midwestern Industrial Hog Production
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DOI：
10.1111/ruso.12026
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发表时间：
2014-03-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
Thu, Kendall
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Ashwood, Loka;Diamond, Danielle;Thu, Kendall
学者们普遍认为生猪生产遵循与综合家禽业相同的工业化进程。自 20 世纪 90 年代生猪养殖业崩溃以来，学者们预计生产者最终将陷入合同的困境，而集成商将完全控制生产过程。这一预测中包含一个假设，即养猪户单独应对这些生产压力。我们对迦太基管理系统的分析为生猪商品链提出了一条不同的路径。迦太基管理系统是一个商业管理公司集团，将育肥生猪养殖户聚集在一起，在生猪生产的从繁殖到断奶阶段组建有限责任公司 (LLC)。我们使用农产品社会学框架来表明，生猪生产的细微差别鼓励使用我们所说的折叠公司来限制责任，从而深刻改变家庭农场。公司和个体养猪户都采用这种创造性的有限责任公司结构来转移生猪生产风险的责任。我们确定了折叠公司如何将生产成本外部化到农村社区。需要进行更多研究，以更好地了解不断发展的农民身份、对农民的法律保护、迦太基管理系统等组织结构的广泛程度，以及它们对农村社区和工业化进程的影响。
Scholars largely assume that hog production is following the same industrialization process as the integrated poultry industry. Since the collapse of hog farming in the 1990s, academics have anticipated that producers will eventually become trapped in contracts that leave the integrator with full control over the production process. Embedded in this prediction is an assumption that hog farmers respond to these productive pressures individually. Our analysis of the Carthage Management System suggests a different path for the hog commodity chain. The Carthage Management System is a conglomeration of business management firms that bring finishing hog farmers together to form limited liability corporations (LLCs) in the breed-to-wean stage of hog production. We use a sociology of agrifood framework to suggest that the nuances of hog production encourage the use of what we call folding corporations to limit liability in ways that profoundly transform the family farm. Corporations and individual hog farmers alike employ this creative LLC structure to deflect responsibility for the risks of hog production. We identify how folding corporations externalize the costs of production onto rural communities. Additional research is needed to better understand unfolding farmer identities, legal protections for farmers, how widespread organizational structures like Carthage Management System are, and their consequences for rural communities and the industrialization process.